Broken Smile
by iKatie
Summary: Screams. Pain. Blinding pain. It was like fire, it covered her body. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t run away. There were bars. Cold metal bars. She lashed out at them. Her hands hit the steel with a clang, having no effect on the cool, unfeeling metal.
1. Prolouge: Lions & Terror

Yaaaaaaaaay stories. I was inspired to rewrite/fix this story after watching my Season Two DVD of Teen Titans and being remind of how much I love them. So I was like "I'LL JUST GO FIX THIS NOW!"

And I did. So yay.

Disclaimer – The Teen Titans, and other related figures are property of DC comics, and not me.

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**Prologue – Lions and Terror  
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_Once upon a year gone by, she saw herself give in…_

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_Screams. Pain. Blinding pain. It was like fire, it covered her body. But she couldn't move, couldn't run away. There were bars. Cold metal bars. She lashed out at them. Her hands hit the steel with a clang, having no effect on the cool, unfeeling metal. But something was wrong with her hands…they weren't normal. Her nails…they were long. Pointed. More like claws. Her hands looked like paws, the paws of an animal. This wasn't right; she wasn't supposed to have claws. No one was supposed to have claws. Normal girls didn't have claws, and she was normal. She swore she was normal! Just like everybody, just like everybody else, she promised! She screamed again; it was inhuman. It wasn't real. It wasn't a scream. It was a growl. Laughter. Cold, calculating laughter. And a voice. A voice proclaiming her to be his greatest works._

_What had she become

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The girl woke from her dream with a start. Cold sweat dripped down her back, soaking the rags that she called clothes.

**_Would it ever end? _**

The question would always haunt her. It would follow her, tempt her, distract her and drive her over the precipice of sanity. Clenching her fists, fighting against the anger that rose within her. The same dream. The same dream every night, every day, never ending, always there, always there.

**I won't lose control. I won't lose control. I won't lose control. **

Digging her dirty nails into the tangled mess of hair at her scalp, she repeated those sentences to herself, a silent mantra. She would not let the anger overtake her. She would not let it run her life. Looking around wildly at the dank cave she was currently situated in. Dark stains marred the walls. They looked…bloody. She looked around through crazed eyes again. Shuddering, she dragged her nails down her skull, down the side of her face, leaving long claw marks. It hurt, it hurt so bad, but not bad enough, not enough to make it all stop, it wouldn't stop, it would never stop.

**_There's blood on the walls.  
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A low growl ripped almost involuntarily from her throat. There were sounds from outside. People were coming.

**_Is it mine?_**

She wasn't good with people.

**_People can't see me! Don't let them see me! _**

Panic welled up in her throat, pressing against her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe, like some sort of disease. People couldn't see her like this.

Another growl.

She could hear voices now. It was a family. There was a mom and a dad and kids. They were laughing, and she could smell food. They were laughing, and having fun and they had food, and she didn't get any of it. Rage began to overtake her again.

**_How come they get a family! Why did this happen to me! _**

Her cat-like eyes flashed. The battle was lost now. She never really stood a chance anyways. A snarl left her mouth.

Something happened. Something changed.

A roar resounded from inside the cave. The family looked up. Was it a mountain lion? Had they perhaps stumbled upon the den of a bear? Nervously, they began to quickly pack up their things. They didn't wish to cause trouble to an animal. Unfortunately for them…this "animal" wanted to cause trouble for them. They could hear the sounds of something moving inside. Claws scraping across a slate floor, coming closer.

The family backed up. But it was for nothing. The animal could sense them, smell them, hear them. No hiding. Emerging from the cave with all the grace expected of the species, the animal faced them, eyes boring into theirs. Uncontrollable, unquenchable rage swam through her vision, colouring it red. The family ceased to be people, they became targets. And she was trained to kill targets. Before they could blink again, the lioness had launched herself at them. Terrified, they ran. They ran as fast as they could, zigzagging through trees and hopping over fallen branches.

The lioness ran faster.

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-Katie 


	2. Chapter 1: Monsters & Rage

**Chapter One – Monsters and Rage**

_This is the story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world…_

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It was another quiet morning at Titans tower. The Titans were enjoying their daily routine, waiting for the inevitable shrill ring of the alarm. And sure enough, it came. Around mid-afternoon, the five teens gathered in the main room, looking at the monitor. Robin took a step towards the computer console, typing a few choice words. Information popped up on the screen, displaying the time, the place and the location. Robin studied it curiously, his eyes roaming over the wall of text that had presented itself. Interesting. They didn't usually get calls to deal with something that seemed so...mundane. But of course, it couldn't be the same old, same old. The police knew better than to call the Titans in on things that could be properly dealt with without their help.

"Dude! It's just a lion! Why can't the police handle it!" Beast Boy obviously had no qualms about holding back his opinion. Raven just rolled her eyes, pointing to a paragraph on the screen, below where Beast Boy had read.

"They were there. They can't handle her."

"So they call in us?! Duuuuude! We're not zookeepers!"

Raven just sighed, pulling her hood over her head.

"Well we do keep you around…" Beast Boy glared. Cyborg laughed. Starfire put a hand over her mouth to bite back her giggles. Even Robin managed a small smirk, before turning his back on the video screen, and towards the door.

"Titans, GO!"

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Raven arrived first on the scene, her soul self rising out of the ground. Beast Boy was next, with Cyborg and Starfire, carrying Robin, arrived last. They had been forced to abandon the R Cycle and the T-Car somewhere back on the nearby highway. Neither of their vehicles were adapted to offroad traveling through thick forest. It just wasn't practical, especially when you could just fly in.

The scene in the small clearing was gruesome. As soon as she could process the sight, Starfire gasped and turned away. Cyborg looked stony, even Beast Boy looked grim. There was blood everywhere. What was left of a young girl on the ground by her father, eyes staring into space. The father…didn't have eyes left to stare. The grass was bloodsoaked, and spatters of the red susbtance were everywhere. It looked like a massacre, a killing ground none of them had expected to stumble onto.

A low growl alerted the titans to the presence of the lioness. The five looked up. She prowled on the edge of the clearing, halfway between the sunlight space, and the darkness of the trees. The blood stained muzzle left little to the imagination about what had come to pass here. Her emerald eyes bored into them, resting on Beast Boy's last. Despite his grim demeanor, he couldn't hide the chill that ran down his spine. He eeped, and hide behind Raven. The sorceress chanted her words under her breath, and her hands gained a dark aura. Robin pulled out his bo-staff and Starfire's hands glowed bright green. Cyborg's sonic cannon held a charge, ready for this fight. The lioness roared at the first sign of aggression and lunged out of the relative shelter of the trees.

Cyborg let loose first, a furious blue sonic blast aimed at the feline. The lioness dodged to the side, easily avoiding. Raven uprooted a small tree, using it as a bat. The lioness ducked, and ducked again when it came at her from behind, showing intelligence beyond her seemingly animal exterior. But as she went for Raven, she forgot about the others, leaving Starfire with a prime opening to knock her out. A flash of green, a pained roar and the thud of a body hitting the ground was all that was seen and heard. The lioness was down. For now. She panted heavily, trying to recover from that blast of energy. Raven watched her carefully…something wasn't right here. Of what Raven could sense of her mind, this wasn't an animal. She looked out from under her hood and found the lioness staring at her. Her eyes held pain…but rage as well. Raven raised an eyebrow when she reached a block. Animals were not trained to anticipate telepaths like her. She nudged Beast Boy.

"Go up to her."

Beast Boy just stared at her. "Go up to her?! Raven, She's a big lion!"

Raven leveled a stare at him, her voice entirely deadpan.

"That's why I'm sending you, _Beast _Boy."

The green teenager rubbed the back of his head.

"Oh…Right…heh." Morphing into a powerful looking lion, he tentatively approached the wounded cat. She snarled, revealing teeth. Beast Boy kept walking, silently reminding himself that she was wounded, he wasn't. He got right up to her…nudged her. Her responding growl was enough to send him straight back to Raven.

"Did you get a good look at her?"

Morphing back into his human self, he brushed off his shirt. "Um...Rae? Did you not see her growling?"

Raven's face twisted into a scowl at the sound of her very unwanted nickname. "Don't call me Rae. I heard it."

Robin broke up the exchange between the two before it could escalate, speaking up.

"We'll just get her tranq'd and have her on her way to the zoo. That must be where she came from. Easy."

Raven rolled her eyes again.

"No. Not easy," She motioned to the lioness with a quick flick of her wrist.

"She's not a lioness Robin." Her voice sounded like she was restraining contempt for the apparent lack of intelligence on the Boy Wonder's part. All of that training with Batman, and he still thought this was just a mere lion. Pffft. Robin just stared. Beast Boy joined in, along with Starfire and Cyborg. The alien princess was the first to speak up.

"Please…I am confused. But is the beast not a lioness as you say? There is more then one name for the animal?"

Raven sighed, exasperated.

"Just trust me. Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos." Black energy flowed from her hands, binding the animal that had begun to get up during the conversation, if somewhat slowly, and apparently in pain. "Robin, if you would please knock her out."

Robin frowned at Raven.

"Why can't you do it yourself?" She had mental powers, didn't she? The Titans didn't need to resort to thwacking people over the head to get them to stay calm, and he wasn't going to resort to violence if they didn't have to. Raven, in her extreme patience, never wavered in her attempts to explain the actual situation to the rest of the team.

"I tried. I can't get into her mind."

"Right." Robin drawled as she drew his bo-staff. Odd. He had never known a mind that Raven was unable to penetrate. Drawing his bo-staff, he flipped it around a few times, landing it with a sound **crack **on the lioness's head. She was out like a light.

Raven released the bonds with a small exhalation of air. "Watch."

And they did. Slowly, ever so slowly, they could see the animal change. Soon, she became less lion and more human…and finally, she was all human. Cyborg was the first to speak.

"Way to hit the nail on the head Raven."

Raven walked over to the girl. She looked skinny…mal-nourished. Her clothes hardly deserved to be called that, and it was impossible to tell what color her hair was under all the dirt caked on. Even through the layers of dirt, she could see the faint outline of scars lining the girls body. Raven vaguely wondered where they had come from while kneeling down to heal the bump on the girls head, ensuring there would be no headache when she woke up. The ribs however, would have to wait until later. She knew how bruising Star's bolts could be.

"We need to take her back to the Tower. She needs medical attention, and I don't think any hospital in the city could handle her."

Robin nodded his consent. "Starfire, you take the girl back to the tower as quickly as possible. Put her in the infirmary."

The red head nodded, picking up the girl with frightening ease, taking leave of the Earth soon after, flying towards the T Tower. Raven vanished in a puff of dark magic, and the three male members started their walk back home.

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Um.

READANDREVIEWPLZKTHNX

-Katie


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